


amor non reciprocatus.

by firewlkr



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Complete, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Implied Sexual Content, Love/Hate, Mild Sexual Content, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewlkr/pseuds/firewlkr
Summary: hanahaki disease is a fictional disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love. it ends when the beloved reciprocates or the victim dies.Mulder and Scully investigate an X File in which the victim is found with flowers sprouting uncontrollably from their lungs and Mulder can't stop coughing. Hanahaki AU MSR. Completed.





	1. break it all with each breath that we breathe

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: shout out to my friend for introducing me to this really interesting concept. I was floored when I realized no one had done an X-Files version and felt it was perfect. 
> 
> TW warning for autopsy/descriptions of a corpse. Nothing worse than you'd see on X-Files.
> 
> Takes place sometime between S5 and S7.

_in the words we speak, babe_  
_somehow I get lost in between_  
_when to suffer in silence_  
_or to break it all with each breath that we breathe_

_red earth & pouring rain - bear's den_

 

It is just past two a.m. and they were twenty miles north of the sleepy Maine town of Florent, speeding through winding roads, sometimes the paint has worn so thin you could barely see the meridian between the two lanes of traffic. Mulder is fairly certain they were the only vehicle he’d seen on this road for the past hour and a half. There is a non-stop of barrage of all-time greatest 80’s hits on the car radio. Scully is snoozing peacefully in the passenger seat, blazer askance in her lap and scattered atop the open files of one Alder Hawthorne, deceased as of yesterday. The glossy photos, which he’d poured over near as much as Scully had, depicted a man in his mid-30’s, normal height, normal build, with a profusion of forget-me-nots sprouting from his open mouth, splattered in blood. By his head is a pool of these same flowers, and a great deal of dried black blood. It seemed almost like some hot-shot avant-garde photo shoot to Mulder and he imagines walking into an art studio and being told, by some skinny guy with a pencil mustache and cigarette, that it’s emblematic of the struggle of man.

They had worked this town before, before Scully had entered the basement of the J Edgar Hoover Building back when Diana was his partner, and when the sheriff saw this grisly murder, he called Mulder directly, all “shucks” and “if ya don’t mind,” and “make it quick, yknow?” The sheriff’s office faxed over the files presently and Mulder poured over them while he made a particularly unpleasant call to his partner. It was a Friday morning and Scully had requested a rare day off - it was her parents’ wedding anniversary and neither Scully nor her brother, Charlie, wanted to leave her alone for it and had planned to keep her so busy she wouldn’t have any time to be sad. Mulder had resisted calling her in, but after a heated conversation with Skinner that involved a nasty looking book on federal procedure being thrown at his head, he felt he was left with little choice.

So Mulder made the call. He summoned up his courage as the dial-tone rang out. He’d been less afraid of a gun to his head than this.

“It’s Scully.”

“Scully, hey!” Mulder nervously pushed the eraser of his wooden pencil into his mouth, gnawing on it with his canine. He knew he sounded uncharacteristically cheerful but pushes ahead. “How’s your weekend going?”

“No. Uh uh. Not a chance. Not this time.” Scully snarled. “You can’t do this to me, not this weekend.”

“Listen, I didn’t want to do this, but Skinner left me no choice. He said either you go with me or it’s not happening at all. A thirty-something man was found in Florent, Maine, with forget-me-nots shoved down his throat. It fits the profile for either a ritualistic killing or worse, a serial killer.”

“Huh? Um, yeah, Mom, just a min… Yeah, it’s Mulder… Um, I’m not… Just give me a second… … I really, really don’t want to do this, Mulder.” Her voice is low, serious, and pleading.

“I suppose I’ll just have to find a federal agent that takes their job seriously,” he snapped, sick to death of constantly walking on eggshells around her. 

“Oh, well then, ”Her voice went hard and there was venom in every syllable. “Sure. Fine. Whatever. Where’s it at?”

“Florent, Maine, about six hundred miles north of DC.”

She swore. “That’s a ten hour drive! Mother…” she let out a groan of pure frustration. He heard the distinct sound of flesh slapping a hard surface. “I’m Chesapeakeake Beach right now.”

“That’s fine, I’ll come and get you. You got an overnight bag packed?”

“Yeah, but it’s not… it’s not the most professional.”

“Ah, Scully, it’s Maine, who cares-?”

“I care, Mulder.” He grits his teeth at the harshness of her words. “But obviously speed is of the essence, so fine. The address is…” She rattled it off so fast he had to scrabble to write it down on a notepad.

“I’m sorry, it was-?” Shehad hung up on him. He growled and slammed down the phone. “Classic Scully,” he mutters under his breath, throwing on his overcoat and snatching up files. “Fucking classic.”

That conversation set the tone for the rest of the trip. She was testy when he retrieved her from her beachside cabin, all slamming doors and flyaway hairs. He was prepared to make a truce of it, even apologize for insinuating she wasn’t anything but the competent agent she was, but she gave him a scorching look and snapped, “Lets just get this over with, shall we?” 

They had stopped only for gas and a mealy drive-thru meal from America’s infamous golden arches. He knew Scully was pissed because she didn’t even object to the fast food, accepting her greasy French fries, chicken nuggets, and diet coke with no comment. Unperturbed, he let her stew, humming along to every song he liked on the radio and even tolerating some talk-show radio program for a few hours. Scully variated from sleeping, writing in her yellow legal pad, reading a thick scarlet-backed book, or staring outside sullenly. When she gave him directions from their worn map, she said the minimal words necessary to get him from point A to point B.

They pass a glimmering “Welcome to Florent, Maine!” sign and Mulder estimates it won’t be long till they’re at the Florent Sheriff’s Station. He’s had god knows how many black coffees from gas stations and feels a little wired. Scully is sleeping soundly, face smooshed against the window, red hair askance. If he turned the radio down, he could her the faintest snore coming from her button nose.

“Scully,” he calls gently, shaking her knee. She jolts awake, papers flying from her lap to the floor.

“What?” She mumbles sleepily, yawning and stretching.

“We’re almost to the sheriff’s station, little lady.”

“I thought we were gonna sleep first,” she’s awake now, running her fingers through her hair and taking a sip of her water.

“Sheriff Yarrow wanted us to look at the body first. The police are operating under the assumption that this is a serial killer, and as such, time—“

“— is of the essence, yeah, I know, Mulder.” She yanks the window cover down to examine herself in the dim light, fussing over

“Well, you don’t have to sound so excited about it,” he mutters. He’d hadn’t slept since seven a.m. this morning, while she’d be dozing all evening.

“One weekend, Mulder. One weekend to be there for my mother. Was that so much to ask?”

He raises his hand, wanting to slam it into the steering wheel, but brings it down with measured speed. “I’ve said it once, probably more than once, but I’ll say it again - it wasn’t my choice to bring you. Skinner _literally_ threw a federal procedural book at my head over this.” 

She mutters something unintelligible under her breath and he knows better than to ask for clarification, although his rebellious streaks begs him to do it. She clears her throat then asks, “What about the autopsy? Do we have that yet?”

Mulder takes a deep breath. Scully laughs wildly. “Let me guess - you told the sheriff you wanted me, _only me_ , to the the autopsy?”

“Actually, their town’s only pathologist is on vacation,” he says darkly.

“So some pathologist in a podunk town can go on vacation but I-? Nevermind. I’m…” she exhales sharply. “It’s fine. Lets just… get this over with, shall we?” 

“Yes,” he mutters. “Lets.” He takes the turn into the sheriff’s station with a sharp turn, jerking Scully forward then back against her seat. He’s headless of her scoffing as he rips the key from the ignition and slams the rental car door on his way out. He doesn’t wait for her.

The sheriff’s station is the standard affair of tacky, 70’s style wood panelling and the scent of stale, burnt coffee in the air. Sheriff Yarrow and a bedraggled looking deputy unlock the front door to let them in. They’re as eager as Scully to get her into the morgue, visibly shaken by the prospect. Murders were rare in this town, and the idea of a serial killer was terrifying, hence their speed in contacting the FBI. If it wasn’t for the fact Mulder had met Sheriff Yarrow, back when he was just a deputy in '90, they could havewaited weeks, even months to have been picked up by the VCU. 

Scully is brutally efficient, throwing open her nylon black bag of deathly wonders to extract a clean set of scrubs, hair cover, and face mask and slipping into the attached bathroom to change. She’s a different woman when she returns, an avatar of death, preparing lights, vials, and surgical instruments with long-practiced familiarity. She looks over to Mulder and the sheriff with an eyebrow cocked.

“Well, uh… get out of your hair,” Sheriff Yarrow mumbles politely, obviously discomfited by the pale corpse in the center of the room Scully had wheeled into the center of the room. He and his deputy shuffle out, closing the morgue doors securely behind them. Mulder noisily scoots a stool over with his cup of coffee. Scully eyes him warily, then clicks her cassette recorder and speaks.

“Victim is Alder Hawthorne, adult male, caucasian, thirty-four years of age. The body weighs… one hundred and seventy pounds and measures sixty-nine inches in length. Victim is…” she scans the length of the body. “Of normal build,” she concludes. She clicks off the recorder, picks up a magnifying glass, and begins examining every square inch of pale, clammy skin, prodding and pushing desiccating flesh with latex gloved fingers to better access the man’s nooks and crannies. After looking over the man’s front, she calls Mulder to assist her in pushing the man over, and, with some effort, they move the dead flesh onto it’s stomach. 

“He looks fine,” Mulder mutters. “I don’t see a damn thing on him. Little blue, maybe.”

“Yeah, it’s… strange, especially if he were murdered,” she frowns. “There would be at least some ligature marks or contusions…” She clicks on her tape again. “The skin is free of abrasions, contusions, lacerations, scars, and burns, however, the skin appears a blueish tint. There are broken blood vessels around the victim’s eyes. Tattoos are not present.” She makes a few more verbal notes regarding the victim’s appearance in her dry voice, then prepares the necessary tools to pry open the dead man. “I’m beginning with the Y-incision,” she says clearly, then shuts off the cassette and takes her scalpel in hand.

“I’ll uh… get some coffee. Want any?” Mulder asks.

“No thank you,” Scully mutters, sickly slow blood oozing around her fingers as she begins slicing open the victim. Mulder feels the familiar woozy feeling that always accompanies watching Scully perform an autopsy, and slips out of the morgue. 

He drinks a styrofoam cup of black, burnt coffee, refills it, and lack-a-daisically asks the sheriff about any other details that may have been omitted from the police report. The most he learns is that there were more blood-splattered forget-me-nots in the sink and toilet of the man’s apartment where he was found dead. No disagreements. No disputes. Little debt. Steady job. The epitome of America’s working class citizen. Had a wife that passed away two years back. 

With more questions than answers, Mulder excuses himself to return to his partner, holding two cups of fresh coffee in his hands. He pushes open the door of the morgue with his foot.

The room is flooded with the sickly sweet scent of blood as Scully uses two pries to wrench open the man’s chest cavity. Mulder looks pointedly away, but it doesn’t stop the wet fleshy sounds of flesh being rend by a five foot three woman running on nothing but Chicken Nuggets and Diet Coke. With a final spasm, Scully successfully has wrenched open the man’s chest cavity. 

“Mulder…” she gasps. 

He swallows his apprehension and turns to look. 

Peaking through the man’s bloody ribcage are the same forget-me-nots, blossoming in profusion amidst their decaying planter. They poke through the ribcage, winding their way through the man’s ribs and sternum, fluttering around his still heart. Through the gore and tissue, Mulder can see spidery roots weaving their way through and into the lung sacks. 

“Holy shit,” Mulder swears, then scrambles for the camera in his bag. He’s busy fitting the flash and lens on as Scully continues.

Click. “The victim’s chest cavity contains foreign matter that appear to be flora. Said matter seems to be sourced from…” The click of a metal instrument, flesh being moved. “… the victim’s lungs,” her voice falters. She clicks the tape off again, then picks up a set of particularly nasty looking shears and begins slicing open the ribcage. Mulder has the camera operating, and, careful to avoid Scully’s face, begins taking photos of the carnage.

“Mulder, it looks like these flowers came from the man,” Scully says through gritted teeth, hacking away at the man’s ribcage. “That… that something… flowered in his lungs, and… he must have asphyxiated on them.” With a final heave, she’s cracked through the ribcage and sets her tool down. “Oh, my nose itches something awful,” she mutters. Mulder lifts up her visor, tugs down her face mask, and itches her petite nose for her. “Thanks,” she smiles as he corrects her visor and mask. 

“Gives a whole new meaning to green thumb,” Mulder wisecracks. “Looks like we found our murderer. Suspect is six inches in height, green, with blue petals.”

“Yes,” Scully muses. “Death by flowers. He must have inhaled some seeds and due to the idealconditions, moisture and heat, died by asphyxiation. There are recorded cases of plant matter growing in humans, usually the lungs, but this is… The worst that I’ve seen. You could open… a very gross flower shop.”

“So he coughed up all those flowers.” 

“It appears so.”

“I wonder… why didn’t he tell anyone? Go to a doctor? ‘Doctor, I’m coughin’ up a bouquet here!’” 

Scully shrugs, beginning to go about the messy business of extricating organs for weighing and analyzing. “They could have grown fairly quickly. Maybe he didn’t have health insurance. Didn’t think anyone would believe him. Thought it would go away. There’s any number of reasons. Men can be pretty stubborn about their health.” She glances askance at him.

“I’ll ignore that obvious jab,” Mulder smirks. “I’ll let the sheriff who our would-be serial killer is - he goes by Seymour.” 

“So you agree with me?” Scully is incredulous. She looks at him directly, holding her blood-covered hands out in front of her. “He inhaled flower seeds, they sprouted, grew, and he asphyxiated on them?”

“I see no reason not to.” Mulder shrugs. “This death seems entirely provable with science, despite its unique circumstances. There aren’t any creatures I’ve heard of that kill by… growing plants from the inside. The flowers don’t appear to be anything unique. At the very least I would like to do some more research on it, just to rule out any extraneous variables, but besides being morbidly beautiful… there’s nothing ‘X-Files’ worthy here.”

“I’ll write this in my diary tonight,” Scully chuckles. “Dear Diary, today Agent Mulder agreed with my theory.” 

“That remains to be proven,” but he’s smiling anyway. “I’d like to get some sleep at the hotel, since we paid for it anyway, then start driving back as soon as possible. If Sheriff Yarrow hears of anything unusual, we can revisit this. But I see no reason it can’t wait until Monday or even Tuesday."

“Sounds good,” Scully’s demeanor has noticeably relaxed.“I’ll finish my autopsy and let you know if I find anything else pertinent.” She heaves out the heart, entwined with blue flowers and leaves and drops it into the scale with a wet smoosh.

“‘Atta girl,” he grins rakishly at her, then makes his way upstairs. Sheriff Yarrow, upon hearing the news, lets out a huge guffaw. 

“Alder died from… flowers? In his lungs? That’s insane! Is that even possible?” 

“I saw something on the news last week that they found a four-inch tall pine tree growing in a man’s lung,” Mulder said. “It’s very probable. At the very least, if I were you, I’d finish up your investigation to verify there’s no foul play and call it a day. Agent Scully and I will conduct some research, just to rule out any other suspicions but we’ll be heading back to DC as soon as she’s finished up. Sheriff, do you have a telephone I could use?” 

“What’s mine is yours.” He gestures the telephone and desk he’s sitting behind and stands up.

Scully is in the morgue for another hour, weighing fleshy organs and narrating into her recorder in a sleep-deprived voice. Eager to be back in his partner’s good graces, Mulder leaves a voicemail on Skinner’s answering machine explaining the situation and letting them know they’d be driving back as soon as they’d had some sleep, and not to expect Agent Scully in until Tuesday to recoup her missed Friday. He’d file the leave request in himself. He calls the Cypress Motel and lets them know of their unique situation, that they plan to sleep between six a.m. and be out of their hair by two p.m., and the rather stoned sounding receptionist offers no complaints. After, he interrogates Sheriff Yarrow for the best diner in the area that’d be open around five a.m. in the morning.

“You’d be stupid to go anywhere else but the BlueBell Diner,” Yarrow grins. “My wife runs the place. Tell her I sent you. On the house.” 

“Sheriff, that’s too kind of you. The government’s paying for our meal-ticket, so don’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s my pleasure. I can tell that young lady would rather be anywhere but here and I don’t blame her. Consider it my thanks for a job well done.” 

Mulder thanks him heartily and returns to the morgue. The goriest of the work has been done; Scully is scrubbing various instruments with scalding hot water and soap, blood splattered across her shield screen. The man’s corpse is out of sight, presumably in one of the many body-sized cubby-holes in the wall. The only evidence of the carnage is the array of cruel instruments to Scully’s right. 

Mulder takes a seat on the squeaky stool to the left of her. “Called Skinman, told him we’d be driving back after some sleep and to not expect you in Monday, as you’ll need to be recouped for your missed leave day. Checked with the hotel, and the sheriff was so kind as to pay for our meal at the auspicious BlueBell Diner.” He waggles his eyebrows. 

She looks at him from beneath her face mask and he can tell her crystal blue eyes are smiling. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get back into my good graces.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that.” He smiles lazily at her. 

“I’m almost done here, just have to finish cleaning up. I’ll meet you in the car?”

“Yes ma’am.” He collects his bags and files and makes his way back to the rental. Mulder watches the early morning sun creep over the horizon from their rental car, feet kicked up on the dash and a newspaper he nicked from the lobby open in his lap. Scully opens the back passenger door and tosses her medical bag in. She’s changed into a loose fitting t-shirt and denim jeans. She looks like she could be heading out for a vacation on the Maine coast and his heart tugs unexpectedly at the idea. She settles into her usual seat and gives him a rare smile. He grins, starts the car with a roar and winds back onto the main road and into town. They find the diner with no issue and the hefty, charming waitress escorts them into a booth. The diner is largely empty with the exception of a handful of surly older men, fisherman’s jackets on their breasts and heaping plates of grits and scrambled eggs. 

Mulder orders a Grand Slam with all the works and Scully treats herself to blueberry pancakes, syrup on the side, please ma’am. She’s in a good mood and he’s basking in the glow of it. Happy woman, happy life, and all that jazz. Nowadays her good humor was few and far between, like sunlight in darkest winter. Whether it’s sleep deprivation or the satisfaction of a job well done, he doesn’t know and doesn’t care. 

“The most surprising thing about this case,” Scully muses, cutting her pancakes into even bites with the same precision he watched her slice open a corpse, not an hour ago, “is that you aren’t insisting it’s aliens, or a ghost, or some ancient superstition no one’s heard of in a hundred years.” 

“You know, there was a bloodcurse recorded by the Puritans during the witch trials that was noted by flowers growing in one’s lungs…” Mulder drawls. Scully’s eyes widen in alarm. He holds his hands in front of himself. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

“You damn well better be, or I’ll drive home without you.” She mutters sourly.

“Ooh! Can your feet even reach the pedals?”

She swats him with her napkin, chuckling. “I’ll get a phone book.”

He changes the subject. “What do you have planned with your mom and Charlie?”

“Oh, we’re going to take a small yacht out into the bay, do some whale watching, then we’re going to eat at the Crab Pot.”

“Where they dump a whole pot of seafood on your table?”

“Mmhmm, with little mallets and bibs and everything.” 

“I love that stuff.”

“Me too, I haven’t had one since before my father passed away.” She dabs at her mouth delicately. There’s a smear of blueberry sauce on her cheek, and Mulder, on instinct, reaches over and swipes it away, then licks it off his finger. 

“Mmm. Love blueberries.”

“One of these days your habit of licking everything in sight is going to get you in trouble.” She’s noticeably discomfited, looking up at him shyly. It’s unbearably cute. She’s all red hair and freckles, not a trace of makeup to hide the shadows under her eyes. He’s not the type of man to mind either way whether a woman wears makeup, but he loves the open honesty in Scully’s face when she doesn’t. It feels more innocent, sweeter, very girl-next-door. It tugs unexpectedly at his heartstrings. 

“There’s a great seafood place a block from my apartment. Cajun. We should go sometime,” he says lightly. 

“Mm.” She hums through a mouthful of syrupy pancakes. “Never had cajun before.”

“Never had cajun? Scully! It’s the soul food of America.” 

She shrugs. “I’ll have to try it, then.” 

Mulder takes a sip of his coffee; black and hot as hell, just the way he likes it, then sets it down and clears his throat a little. Scully looks up.

“I… wanted to apologize for my comment, earlier,” he says quietly. “I know this weekend was really important to you and Charlie. I didn’t mean to infer you were any less of an agent for not wanting to leave your mother.” 

Scully shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. You were right, on that accord at least. This is my duty, whether I like it or not. I… I haven’t had a vacation with Charlie and Mom in years, and with Melissa, my father, and my cancer…” he thinks he can hear a crack in her voice, faint and fragile. “… it’s been hard on her, to see her family suffer. I don’t want to cause her anymore.” 

“I understand, at least a little.” Her hand is in the middle of the table, a small white hand of surrender waiting to be captured. They’ve held hands before; their hands often found one another’s during Scully’s battle with cancer or at the tail-end of a particularly stressful case. It wasn’t exactly commonplace, but it wasn’t an extinct species, either. He reaches out and casually takes it, covering her small hand with his own. Their eyes lock, iced blue and forest floor viridian.

She slides her hand back into her own lap discreetly. 

The rejection stings more than he warranted. Strangely, it stings more than other missteps with women in the past; when you misstep with a new romantic interest, it’s almost expected to overstep or make a mistake along the way, a bumbling, teeth-clicking kiss or an arm around the shoulder when it’s not asked for. He’s made his fair share of misguided leaps of faith, always apologizing and doing everything he can to ease her back into her comfort zone. But this was Scully. His partner, his best friend, the first thing on his mind every morning, the last thing he thought of before he went to sleep. She had become central in his life in a way he was barely beginning to grasp, and he had assumed, perhaps naively, that the feeling was mutual. Foolishly making assumptions he barely understood; how very Mulder of him. Somewhere a man with a cigarette was laughing in a darkened room. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, voice full of regret. Suddenly he feels very out of breath; he tucks his mouth into the crook of his elbow to cough.

“It’s okay,” Scully says quietly. “I’m just…” she falls silent. “Well, you know how it is,” she finishes meekly.

 _No, I don’t_ , he wants to say. _Please tell me. Please explain to me the scientific nature of the “you know how it is”. Explain in detail and cite your sources, please._ But instead he only says “Yeah.” and stands, leaving a crumpled twenty dollar bill on the linoleum table between the war zone of their meal and leaves for the rental car.

The Blushing Rose Hotel is cozy enough, more bed and breakfast than Days Inn. Every time he and Scully check into a hotel, he has the outlandish fantasy that the pleasant receptionist will say “All we have left is one queen bed, will that be okay? Oh, we’re the only hotel for twenty square miles. There’s a blah blah blah convention in town, didn’t you know?” And through the convenience only found in the driest romantic comedies, they will be forced to share a queen bed. They’ll move through all the domestic movements together, showering and brushing their teeth and debating whose side is which (his is right and Scully’s is left, always) and they’ll go to sleep. Sometimes the heat is out and they can practically see their breath in the air; sometimes she’s wounded from (insert your favorite tragedy here) and just wants a little cuddle; often times they wake tangled in each other’s arms, and oh well, we’re already here, might as well finish what we started, huh? 

There is more than enough selection of rooms and Mulder’s grateful this time. She’s got him so on edge he’d hate having to share a bed with her tonight and he has a feeling she feels much the same. When they come to their rooms, side by side like always, Mulder says, “Just give me five hours then we’ll be back on the road again, alright?” His throat itches and he coughs into his crooked arm again.

Scully nods, key in the lock of her door. “Good night, Mulder.” And she slips within her room before he can reciprocate.

“Classic,” he mutters recklessly under his breath as he shoves the door open with unwarranted force.

One of Mulder’s hobbies is that he’s an insomniac; he’s been afflicted with it since his college days and it’s an old friend to him by this point. It’s convenient sometimes, and others debilitating. It’s the latter for him today; even with the curtains all the way closed and a pillow over his head, his mind is racing and sleep is hard coming. To add an icing on the cake of self-pity, he can’t seem to stop coughing. Sheriff Yarrow must have gotten him sick, or all this traveling weakened his immune system. It’s the deep coughing that premeditates a particularly surly chest cold, and he makes a note to get some hot tea in his system before he leaves. He can spend tomorrow recuperating. Mulder hasn’t taken an honest to god sick day in several years, despite what he’s told the Bureau. He saves those sick days on excursions out of town or off the books alien investigations with the Lone Gunmen, or when he wants to avoid some training exercise. He refused to waste it on some actual illness.

He wakes around eleven a.m. to a particularly violent coughing fit. No phlegm; just his lungs heaving with effort. Sleepily, he gropes for the phone on the nightstand and dials Scully’s room number. He can hear it ring through the thin floral wallpapered wall.

“Mulder?” Scully’s voice is clear and soft. 

“Hey,” he mumbles. “You awake?”

“Yeah, have been for a while,” Scully says. Why is it always easier to talk to her through the comfort of a telephone? Not constantly dissecting her body language or preparing himself for her to reject him, he can hang up the phone all he wants. He tries not to think too deeply on what that says about their relationship and pushes forward. 

“I can be ready to go in about thirty minutes.”

“Okay. Are you feeling okay? You were coughing the whole time.”

“Yeah, I think Sheriff Yarrow gave me a bug or something,” Mulder says. He can feel her Doctor Scully vision through the wall. There’s something claustrophobic and prickly about it. Like she can’t trust him to take care of himself, not even for a second. Sometimes he finds it indulgent and basks under her care like a snake with a glowing red heat lamp, but her prickliness this entire adventure has worn him down to an irritable sliver of himself.

“Let me look you over before—?” 

“For god’s sakes Scully, it’s a chest cold,” he snaps irritably. “Despite popular opinion, you don’t need to mother me at every turn.” He presses the phone receiver into the bedspread to hack roughly into his elbow again. When he presses the speaker back to his ear, it’s dead. 

He slams the phone back into its cradle. 

She’s ready and waiting for him in the hotel lobby. She’s wearing a soft pink blouse and cream-colored cardigan, uncharacteristic of Scully, that shows her chest to good advantage and exposing the secret smattering of freckles that lay within, secretive and tempting. She has white slacks on tight to the thigh and tan boating shoes. She looks like she should be hanging off the arm of a young millionaire on his yacht. She looks lovely and pleasant and she doesn’t deign to look up at him from the medical journal in her lap. 

His lungs tighten and he’s forced to cough grievously into his arm again. He can feel Scully’s eyes on him again, but when he looks up, she’s ignoring him with great concentration.

“Ready?” He says, voice hoarse from his illness. 

“Mmhmm.” She stands, taking her backpack, and after they drop off their keys, follows him into the rental car.

Scully’s prickliness is replaced by complete disinterest in anything he did or said. He even purposefully slams on the breaks at a stop sign just to see if she reacts. She wrenches against the bondage of the seatbelt, gritting her teeth, but makes no response. He can only imagine what she’s thinking to herself; _oh, I’m mothering him, am I? Fine, I’ll ignore him, see how “Spooky” fucking Mulder likes_ that _shit!_

After their first fill-up, the halfway point of the journey, Scully pointedly offers to take over and he allows her, crawling into the backseat of the car to lay down, his jacket over his head. For all of Scully’s faults, she was an excellent driver, and he slept better there than he had in the hotel. His mother told him, when he was a little boy and prone to colic, that she’d drive him around the block over and over until he finally fell asleep. He wakes briefly only to cough and toss into a more comfortable position. 

He wakes with a start when he hears the trunk creak open; it’s pitch black outside and he doesn’t know where he is. He jerks up, Quantico-sharp instincts kicking in, flooding his body with adrenaline and cortisol. Scully looks up at him as she slams down the trunk, pupils constricted to pinpoints in the light of the car. She has her bags in her hands and heads towards the sleepy cabin he’d picked her up at yesterday afternoon. He opens the car door and crawls out. He sees Scully greet her mother and Charlie., who are waiting patiently on the quaint wooden porch for her. He wants to wave even raises his arm to do so, but they ignore him and turn back into the warm cabin, slamming the door soundly behind their small family. 

He barely registers the last leg of the journey, rolling the windows down despite the freezing early spring air and blaring the nightly hair metal program. He stops at a diner close to his apartment he knows stays open late and picks up a to-go order of a greasy burger and fries, along with a six-pack of a local beer. He stumbles into his apartment, throws down his supplies, and puts on the first program that looks suitably violent and interesting and chows down on his food. His coughs have mostly subsided, but he washes down the last of his cold French fries with a mug of steaming hot mint tea that Scully had left over here the last time she’d stayed over. 

He’s wide awake from his nap in the car and so tries to make his time productive and devoid of any annoyed redheads. He tries to sit down with a Tom Clancy he’s trying to finish and abandons it, instead moving to his haphazard library of books on the occult and unexplained, searching for any mentions of flowers growing inside of people. A couple of hours pass like this and he finds nothing, so he drops that and digs into the storage room that once was his bedroom to drag out a dusty box of ancient X-Files that had too little evidence to properly consider, but he refused to dispose of. 

Deep into the fifth beer out of six, he finds a file that catches his eye. Dahlia Heathers, age sixteen from Acacia Falls, New Mexico. The files are dusty and stained with a foreign substance. There are no photos, no autopsy reports. The file had been discarded by whoever had been in charge of the X-Files back in the 50’s without a second thought. In scrawling handwriting, he puts together that Dahlia was found dead in her high school bathroom with yellow tulips sprouting out of her open mouth and nostrils. Upon further investigation, the flowers were found to be sourced… from her lungs. 

“Holy shit,” Mulder turns over the file over and over for any more information There’s only the one page. “Shit. Fuck. I have to call Scully—!”

He drops the file in surprise as the coughing fit overwhelms him. It’s more powerful than the rest have been; he doubles over, positive he’s going to vomit, and desperately covers his mouth with two cupped hands to catch whatever bile he’s about to retch up, his chest heaving and lungs working in overdrive.

Something ticklish flutters from his esophagus and onto his tongue and the coughing subsides.

Terrified and trembling, Mulder opens his mouth and reaches for it.

Pinched between forefinger and thumb is a single scarlet petal. 


	2. and if the stars collide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: thanks to everyone who commented on the last chapter! I'm on spring break rn so new chapters should be out fairly quickly.

_and if the stars collide, will she relieve my soul?_  
_and when we feel alive I know she'll let me go_  
_when you read my lips, I know you feel all cold_  
_but I promise you my heart is made of gold_  

_I don't wanna waste my time - joji_

 

 

When he calls Scully he can’t stop his voice from shaking, stumbling over his words and saying the same things over and over, the words falling from his lips in circling rapid fire. “I… I don’t know where this came from, hell, I haven’t even _seen_ roses in weeks… n-no, I don’t feel like I have a fever… shit Scully, I don’t have a thermometer…” a pause to heave gruffly into the open air. He spits out another rose petal. “Fucking hell!” He pushes it into the same evidence glass bottle as he placed the others, hands trembling. He’s self-conscious of every breath he takes, lest it trigger the fluttering feeling in his lungs. 

Scully is patient and kind, her soft voice soothing but firm, transitioning into doctor mode with every word. She tells him she’s packing her things and she’ll be over within the hour. “Go the emergency room right now, Mulder,” she tells him firmly between his stumbling words. 

He scoffs. “And tell them _what?_ I don’t… I don’t even know where to begin with this! I-It could be extraterrestrial, it could be a hex, a foreign biological entity…”

“Tell them you have a cold, a bad one, that you want x-rays of your chest, alright?” Zippers and fabric being tossed, slamming of drawers. “Tell them your physician ordered it and that they’ll be in shortly.” 

She hangs up and motivated by anxiety, he obeys her without a second thought, grabbing everything he can think pertinent and shoving it into his overnight bag with numb fingers. He drives on empty night-soaked streets to the nearest hospital, running through red lights and stop signs when they’re devoid of anyone. The image of that man’s autopsied corpse is the only thing on his mind - blue forget-me-nots reaching from the depths of his lungs through his esophagus and out of his mouth, choking him into submission. He turns it over again and again in his mind, imagines himself curled in some desolate corner of his apartment, a thorned rosebush sprouting relentlessly out of his body. 

“Scully will be here,” he tells himself aloud. “We have what the other victims don’t - forewarning. It’ll be just another funny story to tell Skinman at our next meeting…” with that he retches miserably into his lap and produces two scraps of rose petals, their virulent perfume filling his nostrils. 

The emergency room is incredulous at his rambling diatribe. He pockets the rose petals he’s collected and instead insists his physician thinks he might have pneumonia and Dr. Scully wants x-rays on his chest as soon as possible, even waves around his badge for good measure. The ER doctor almost doesn’t even go through with it on account of the beer on his breath and his blood-shot eyes, but after listening to his chest, he agrees and has Mulder strip to his briefs and climb onto an icy cold metal table for x-rays.

_In no time at all, I’ll be on another table, and Scully’s going to slicing open my chest and picking roses out of my ribs…_ he thinks morbidly to himself as the x-ray technician maneuvers equipment and gives him instructions to lie perfectly still. He focuses on a meditation technique he learned a long time ago to try to stable his heart-rate and nerves and it almost works. He manages to resist coughing for the entire procedure and is sipping water placidly in the doctor’s office when he hears Scully’s voice from down the hall, talking to his doctor.

She walks in the doctor's office to see him heaving relentlessly into the trashcan. When he looks up, she has a soft expression of sympathy and concern on her pale features. She’s in full Special Agent Scully attire, an austere black pantsuit only alleviated by a green sweater beneath and sharp heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

He heaves one last time to produce a total of three rose petals. Scully comes to his side to look at him sympathetically, a hand on his shoulder, rubbing slow, small circles. 

“I was sincerely, sincerely praying this was the worst joke ever,” she sighs. She steps away to close the door securely behind them. She throws open the drawers of the doctor’s office. “Sit on the table,” she instructs. She winds a stethoscope around her neck and snaps on latex gloves. “Shirt off.” 

He tries desperately to retreat back into his peaceful meditation, but Scully’s cold stethoscope and warm prodding fingers on his bare abdomen trigger several coughing fits. Her touch is professional yet tender, lingering on his bare chest and neck as she listens, head bowed close to his. The shampoo she uses smells sweet to him. “It almost sounds like pneumonia,” she says, listening, her warm breath brushing his neck. He coughs pointedly away from her and she continues listening, eyebrows raising in alarm. 

“There’s definitely a blockage,” she says matter-of-factly, picking up another instrument and instructing him to open his mouth. She examines his throat with a critical gaze. 

“Dr. Scully?” The x-ray technician knocks on the door with a manila envelope in their hands. “Patient’s x-rays.”

She withdraws her examination and takes the x-rays from the technician. She pushes them up onto the lightbox, switches it on, then turns off the lights.

“Mulder…” she says softly, eyes scanning the x-rays, brows knitted together in deep concern.

Mulder wonders morbidly if this is how Scully felt when she realized she had brain cancer. 

Within his left lung is what appears to be a single rose. There are scraps of petals floating around the cavity represented by black spots. Roots can be seen winding into the shadowy grey parts of the lung. His lungs ache just thinking about it. He presses a hand to the left side of his chest, wondering if he can feel it.

Scully stares at the x-rays for a long time, silent, a small white hand pressed to her soft lips. He interrupts her concentration by a coughing fit and she comes to his side, eyes warm and full of unadulterated concern, but then she blinks hard, the expression shifting to one of brilliant, fiery determination that he has grown to adore. 

“Alright,” she says, speaking quietly at first and then with resolve. “We’ll do a complete toxicology and bloodwork makeup on you. We’ll take a biopsy from the lung. In the meantime, I’m starting you on an IV of antivirals and getting you on oxygen. We need to get the flowers I took from Hawthorne’s body in to be analyzed stat as well as your rose petals. We need to figure out if this is parasitic, viral, bacterial, airborne, waterborne, bloodborne…” She fumbles for pen and paper from the desk and writes down furiously, latex hand moving across the page in a flowing script, directions to disperse to the doctors.

“What’s your theory?” He says hoarsely. He feels numb and incompetent.

She shakes her head, still scribbling. “I don’t have one right now. If they were the same species of flora I could accept some sort of airborne biological contaminant, but forget-me-nots and roses are completely different—“

“And tulips.”

“Tulips?” She looks up at him incredulously.

“Did I not tell you? Damn it, get my bag,” he demands. She obeys, throwing it to him and he fumbles for the files, shoving them in her waiting hands. Her eyes fly across the page, then widen in alarm. 

“Two’s coincidence, three’s a pattern,” she mutters before running out of the room and grabbing the first nurse she can, her voice rapid-fire and not taking anything less than “yes ma’am” for a satisfactory answer.

The next three hours are a barrage of needles, prodding, and prying for Mulder. He dozes between doctors visiting him to take whatever next fluid or sample or whatever from him that they require. He wants nothing more than to be done with this and start _digging_ into the X files for whatever the hell this thing was. He had a sinking feeling that all of these tests would be for not. This had to be something else. Something extraterrestrial. Something ancient. It wasn’t going to show up in some lab report. But they had to rule out every possibility, so he succumbs to the medical procedures and waits.

He wakes from a cat nap to Scully’s soft hand on his own. He feels that peculiar tickling on the back his throat that usually accompanies the rank stench of roses, but thanks to a medication Scully has him on, he’s able to resist the urge to cough this time. She looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. He wonders if she’s been crying. 

“Nothing,” she says miserably. “Not a single damn thing. Besides some alcohol in your blood, which we already knew about, Mulder, you have a perfect record of health. Doctor Watson has had it up to here with me and wants me to move to getting it out of you, but the roots are so entwined with the flesh… it’d have to be an open surgery, which is extremely dangerous. You’d be recovering for months.” 

“If we don’t, I’m plant food,” he says darkly. She nods. 

“I’d like to—“

He holds up a hand. “Lets… backpedal on the open heart surgery for just one second, Scully.” She raises an eyebrow but lets him continue, biting her bottom lip. “All your tests have proven that there’s no reasonable explanation for a rose making a planter out of my lung, right? There’s another avenue we haven’t taken yet.” 

“The paranormal,” she says with the same relish she would an unsavory piece of trash. He smiles grimly.

“Give me twenty-four hours. Make a few calls. There’s no evidence I should be dead within that amount of time, right? That… that girl in New Mexico was recorded as having complained of a cough for about a month prior.” 

Her lips draw into a thin line and she crosses her arms. She opens her mouth once to object, then closes it. She begins to nod slowly. “Twenty-four hours. You stay in DC, with me, at all times. If you don’t turn up at least something by that time, I’m cutting it out of you.” He’s drawn again to the memory of watching her slice open Hawthorne and not even the medication can stop the coughing this time. He leans over the side of his bed to spit out two petals into the bedpan. 

“Yes ma’am.” 

Within thirty minutes Scully has him checked out of the hospital and speeding off towards the Hoover building, hospital bracelet still on his wrist. It’s almost mid-day, the sun streaming in golden bows between buildings and jumping off windows as they speed through hectic downtown DC. They park in the dimly lit parking garage and take the long elevator down to their office.

Mulder spends the majority of the afternoon on hold with the Acacia Falls sheriff station while Scully quarrels with each town’s respective hospitals to have the victims' entire medical records overnighted immediately. Acacia Falls consents, especially considering the case was over forty years ago, but Florent requires more convincing, even with the sheriff calling in and vouching for her qualifications. After being told no by the hospital director himself, Scully slams down the phone and gathers her things. She storms out with a scowl, saying something about how she has to get a subpoena prepared and needs Skinner’s signature for it. In the meanwhile, Mulder is able to contact the Acacia Falls’ victim younger sister. She explains, in a trembling voice, that she was never content with the explanations the police gave her and did some looking into on her own.

“The only thing I was ever able to do was find a mention of it in some Japanese news articles,” she told him. “They called it… hana… hanahaki, I think?”

He asks her to spell it out and scrawls it down. He contacts the FBI’s Japanese translator for their expertise, and from there, is able to track it down to a scattering of news articles over the past several decades. The translator kindly faxes him handwritten translations, and Mulder reads several cases over the case of a few years, of men and women of all ages either succumbing to death by asphyxiation on flowers or being miraculously cured overnight. In one article, he finds a line that stops him in his tracks, heart thudding in his chest.

 

_Hanahaki disease is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love. It ends when the beloved reciprocates or the victim dies._

 

As if in response, he endures a particularly rough coughing session and is rewarded with a handful of crimson rose petals in his palm. He tosses them in the garbage along with all the others he’s retched up over the day and leans forward in his desk, head in his hands.

“Unrequited love,” he whispers to himself, his mind racing. He thinks of all the times over the past day he found himself coughing after thinking about Scully, after she was disparaging or beautiful or kind to him. He had been aware, to a certain extent, how he felt about her. He thinks of all the times they almost - _almost_ kissed, they held hands, when he pressed his lips to her forehead, or when their hands met, sometimes casually, sometimes tenderly. He, without question, did love her, would die or kill for her, whichever she liked, but…

Scully slams open the door, sopping wet and cursing. She has a paper bag in her hands he presumes is take-out. She drops the package on his desk unceremoniously, throwing off her dripping overcoat onto an empty chair and wringing out her hair, which is curling girlishly over her ears. He’s still reading over the news article translations, eyes moving over the words over and over. Unrequited, unrequited…

“Mulder?” Scully is then kneeling beside him, scarlet hair brushing his cheek, the scent of her perfume overwhelming him, floral and sweet and rain-kissed. “What have you found?” 

He coughs, pointing to the news article translation. “I… found this,” he stammers between coughs.

Scully reads it silently, then stares at him, bewildered. “You don’t…” 

He passes her another article. “In this, a woman was coughing up roses until she became engaged. The condition went away instantaneously. She was looked over by doctors. They even provided x-rays, Scully.” 

“Mulder, there’s no way… there must have been some other cause to have made the condition go away… a-a-a biological thing, perhaps, or some sort of… Japanese medication…” she stammers, coming to her feet, eyes wide. 

“Alders’ wife had died two years before him,” Mulder informs her, “and he had forget-me-nots flowering in his lungs. He loved her beyond the grave so much it killed him. Dahlia’s sister said she was in love with her female best friend and was afraid of coming out about it. These, at least, make sense.” 

“Fine, even if this _were_ true, as insane as it sounds, then why isn’t afflicting millions of people? Almost everyone suffers unrequited love at some point in their lives.”

“The article says it has to be truly desperate love, so much it can physically manifest. It’s as much psychological as it is physical.” 

She’s quiet and contemplative, then, after putting the pieces together, fixes him with a critical gaze. He knows where she’s going and doesn’t know what he’ll tell her. 

Her last question finally comes, the one he’s been dreading. “… So you’re in love with someone,” she says quietly. “You need to tell them, right now. Who is it? We’ll.. we’ll work something out, I’ll talk to them—“

“It has to be reciprocated,” he reminds her. “It can’t be fabricated.” 

“Okay, okay, fine, who is it?” 

“I don’t know,” he lies quickly, avoiding her gaze lest she sees the truth written on his face.

She throws her up hands in the air. “Bullshit!” She snaps. “You said it yourself, it’s a desperate love, it has to be consuming you! You can’t just love someone and _not know_ that you do!” 

“Scully, I’m as surprised as you are—“

“ _No you’re not!_ ” She snarls at him. He’s never seen her this angry. She’s furious, flush high in her cheeks and fists clenched at her sides. “You know who it is! Mulder, this will _kill_ you if you don’t… grow up!” 

Mulder rises to his feet, blood boiling beneath his skin. “Agent Scully, since when the _fuck_ does it concern you—“

“I’m your goddamn physician! Your best friend! Your fucking partner! Mulder, this will _kill_ you if you don’t take this seriously! You saw—“

“ _I know what I—_ “ His roar is cut off by an all-consuming coughing fit, washing over him with such fury he’s rendered doubled over. The rose petals are falling from his mouth and he desperately clasps his hands over his mouth to contain them. He can barely hold them, petals as red as blood filling his clutched hands.

He looks up. Scully is looking down at him, eyes red, tears streaming down her face. He is clutching dozens of scarlet rose petals in his hands. She opens her mouth, then clenches her fist and bites down on it, and sweeps out of the room. She slams the door so hard behind her his Oxford diploma falls to the ground and the glass frame shatters. 

 

His car is still at the hospital so he’s forced to hail a cab to leave the office, standing in the rain, waving his hand desperately. Wheezing into his hands, he gives the cabbie the address to the Lone Gunmen’s flat. Two hours later, he’s dangling off their rag-tag couch, spilling his guts in a drunken stupor to Langly, Byers, and Frohike, who listen in silence, stereo playing some thrashy rock band in the background. There’s greasy pizza from a local chain on the table, beer bottles and shot glasses playing a chess match between articles on conspiracy theories and UFO sightings.

“So let me get this straight,” Langly says after a time, arms crossed. “You’re coughing up flowers till you die, unless you fuck Scully.”

“Wow, what a dilemma,” Frohike scoffs sarcastically. “Well Mulder, better get cracking.” He waggles his eyebrows lasciviously. 

Byers clears his throat, tugging at his tie. “It’s not that simple, though. Scully has to reciprocate your feelings, sincerely.”

“Well, gentlemen, it was nice knowing you,” Mulder says grimly, raising his glass to toast them. “Frohike, my video collection is as good as yours. Byers, please don’t kill my fish. Langly—“

“No way, Scully _has_ to have… something for you! Didn’t… didn’t she almost kiss that guy… pretending to be you? So there’s a chance, right?” Frohike interrupts him. “You’re a good looking guy, she’s absolutely gorgeous. Take her to dinner, woo her, be a man!”

Mulder laughs darkly, pouring himself another shot of bourbon and downing it, slamming the shot glass down on the table. “Frohike, you didn’t see her when we were in Florent. She can’t fucking _stand_ me. I tried to apologize for being such an ass and touched her hand and the way she moved it back… she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’m shocked, truly shocked, she hasn’t transferred the hell out of the X files yet. That’s probably what she’s doing right now.” 

“You sure came to the right people, Mulder.” Langly snarks. “We’re the three fucking stooges of romance. If you weren’t already fucked, you damn well are now.” 

Mulder opens his mouth to retort, but he hears the chip-tune song of his cellphone ringing from across the room in his jacket pocket, tossed carelessly on a chair. He stumbles to his feet, room spinning, and fishes it out and presses it to his ear. “Mulder.” 

“Mulder, it’s me.”

He clutches it to his chest while he endures a wracking coughing fit, rose petals falling into his clutched hand. “Shut it off!” He hisses at Langly, gesturing frantically to the stereo. Langly slams off the stereo blaring The Ramones. Mulder moves to the corner of the room, talking furtively into the phone. “Hey.”

“… How are you feeling?” Scully says tentatively.

“No worse, no better. Yourself?” He keeps his voice tight on a leash, afraid he’ll either piss her off or tell her he loves her. He doesn’t know which is worse at this point. 

“I’m… fine. Mulder… we should talk. Talk about your plan.” Her voice is hoarse and thin. He wonders if she’s been crying all this while. Guilt wrings out his heart, or is it the flowers?

Throat tickling furiously, he nods. “Yeah, okay. When and where?”

“As soon as we can. Where are you right now?” 

“The gunmen’s flat.”

“I’ll come over. We’ll figure something out, alright Mulder?”

“Yeah, sure, okay,” he says.

When she hangs up he turns to the gunmen, looking grim as death.

“She’s coming?” Byers says softly. Mulder nods. “You’ve got to tell her, Mulder. This will, and I mean this literally, kill you. Death by flowers.”

“Feed me, Seymour,” Langly wisecracks in a drawling tone. 

Mulder points an accusatory finger at all of them. “Don’t fucking tell her it’s her, alright? Not unless I do first. Play dumb.” 

“Mulder, we haven’t gotten laid in a decade, we’re not stupid,” Frohike says defensively, clearing cluttered papers and discarded paper plates stained with pizza grease. 

“Don’t worry about us — worry about yourself,” Byers says, arms crossed. “What exactly do you plan to do?” 

“I can’t tell her,” Mulder says quickly. “Not _just_ because I’m a coward, but because that… defeats the purpose of this. If I tell her I love her, she’ll say she feels the same way, but that’s not sincere. We’ll just… talk things through. Do what we always do.”

“But you’re both federal agents, Mulder.” Byers has joined Frohike in cleaning up their small flat, suit jacket draped over a chair so as to not crease it, sleeves rolled up the elbows. “She’s going to investigate.” 

“If she figures it out, she’ll know I don’t want to tell her for a reason,” Mulder says. “However much she may hate me, we understand each other.” 

“So… what am I getting when you die, then?” Langly says sarcastically.

“Not a damn thing at this rate,” Mulder mutters sourly, moving into the bathroom to wash himself up. The bathroom is the sordid affair one might expect of three bachelors sharing living quarters - a permanent scum ring on the toilet and tub, stray hairs and shaving cream encrusted on the sink, a worrisome amount of tissues in the bin. 

He stares at his reflection in the water-stained mirror. There’s a five o’clock shadow ringed around his jawline, sandpapery and dark. There are dark marks like bruises burned beneath his eyes, reflected sorrowful and back at him. He rinses his face brusquely, pressing freezing water into his face. He runs more cold water over his neck and wrists and nicks a cologne he assumes is Byer’s and gives himself a measured spray. 

He hears someone knock on the apartment door and erupts into a coughing fit, clutching the sink basin for stability as his lungs work furiously. His body’s efforts are rewarded with a dozen scarlet rose petals, spit spattered and fragrant. 

“I’m so sick of fucking roses,” he snarls bitterly, taking great steadying breaths and walking out of the bathroom.

 

Scully is talking to the Gunmen, arms crossed and lips drawn into a straight line. They go conspiratorially quiet when Mulder exits the bathroom, all staring at him. She smells like a fresh shower and is wearing different clothes from this morning.

“Hey,” he says, voice low. Scully meets his gaze. There is hesitation and anxiety imprinted on the fine lines around her blue eyes.

“Hey,” she says softly. 

“Mulder, how about you start us all from the beginning,” Byers says, gesturing for them all to sit down. Scully sits directly across from Mulder, shoulders drawn upwards and her chin taking that stubborn jut he loves. More coughing. 

“Right,” he says huskily. “So. For whatever… reason, I’ve been afflicted with this hanahaki disease. I’m suffering from unrequited love. This only ends if I tell the person, and they reciprocate completely, or…”

“Seymour gets his revenge,” Langly finishes. Mulder nods. 

“Scully… I’m choosing not to tell you who it is,” he says firmly. Scully opens her mouth to object, but he holds his hand up. “It wouldn’t make a difference. This is something I have to handle on my own.”

“But you are in love,” she says, unsure. He nods. “How long?” 

He hesitates. When had he fallen in love with her? It had been so seamless, a living thing that had always existed so long as she had been in his life. There was no beginning or end to that feeling, it stretched ceaselessly into either direction of their lives.

“It’s hard to say,” he says honestly. “Maybe five, six years.” 

“That’s a long time, Mulder,” she says softly. “Very long. Why haven’t you told her?” 

It’s strange, to talk about this in these tentative, safe terms. The anonymity renders a freedom in his words, allowing him to creep around the issue they could never acknowledge existed. 

“I don’t think she feels the same way.” He twirls the half-empty bottle of lager in front of him between his fingers. “She’s my be— … a very good friend of mine and I wouldn’t want to jeopardize that. If we go forward, we can’t go back.” 

“Coward,” Frohike says sullenly, eyes darting over to Scully. She doesn’t notice. 

“In this, perhaps,” Mulder agrees. 

“That’s not an option anymore, though,” Scully says, voice growing stronger. “Why are you still hesitating, then?” 

“Things have been rough between us. She’s… emotionally reserved, hard to read. One day I think I could, the next it’s… difficult.” 

“Sounds familiar,” she smiles wryly. 

“Ms. Scully, could I get you a drink?” Byers says companionably. He wouldn’t be out of place in one of the nicer downtown DC bars with his open white button-down and clean-cut hair. She hesitates, then nods, smiling. He pops off the bottle cap of a beer and expertly pours it into a glass. She takes a sip. He knows she’s not much for beer, more a wine-drinker herself, and she wrinkles her nose delicately in distaste. 

Mulder coughs four rose petals into his hand and his chest wrenches in pain with the effort. 

After a moment, Scully continues talking. “Events have accelerated any progress you had wanted to make in this endeavor. You should invest everything you have, mental, emotional, physical, into making the best attempt to… “woo” her as you can.”

“Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Scully?” He smiles weakly.

She laughs. “No. That’s my opinion as a woman, Mulder. However, my professional opinion is that you should take a couple of weeks of medical leave, off the X files. Spend a _lot_ of time with this woman.”

He shakes his head. “Dying or not, I can’t do that, Scully.” The X files were what brought them together; it would be counterproductive to spend less time with her.

And here it is again. At his resistance, her eyes go hard and foreign, lips twisting in resistance, shoulders straightening. And he kindles to her anger, leaning back in his chair,an arrogant sneer on his face, _daring_ her to object. Fight me, Scully. Prove me right, that you don’t want a damn thing to do with me. Let's do what we do best and tear each other to shreds with moral conviction.

But she surprises him. “Fine,” she exhales. “It is, after all, your choice.” There is no hardness in her words, only compliance and resignation. “But we have to tell Skinner, Monday morning. You owe him that much.” 

“I can only imagine what Skinman’s going to say to this,” he mutters. 

“Scully,” Frohike clears his throat. “Have you ever been in that situation before? Pining after some lover boy who won’t think twice about you?” 

Scully pauses, frowning. “In high school, a couple of times? But everyone goes through that. In college and med school… well, I knew what I wanted.” She flushes. He knows a little about her history; powerful men double her age, fast cars, and jealous wives. “Now… … Now it’s complicated,” she whispers to herself. “I… I don’t know _what_ it is, whatever I’m in right now.” 

“What would you do? If you were coughing up rose petals with a death wish?” Mulder asks, genuinely curious. 

“Invest in some lingerie and hope for the best,” she says brazenly, taking a long draught of her beer. Frohike’s boot on the table hits the ground with a loud thump and Byers almost drops his drink. With that, Scully takes her leave, collecting her things and avoiding Mulder’s gaze. 

Mulder escorts her to her car, walking silently alongside her along the darkened street, hands in his pockets. When they approach her car, they stand awkwardly in front of one another. 

“See you tomorrow?” Mulder says quietly. She nods. 

“Mmhmm. … Mulder…” Their eyes lock, powerful and magnetic and unwavering. She steps forward and grabs his shirt in one soft fist. She looks as if she’s going to kiss him and he begs her to do it. “… Have courage.”

And before he can respond she releases him, gets into her car, and speeds away. He’s left standing on the street, his chest aching from the flora residing within him and his own turmoil.

“Courage,” he whispers to himself. He coughs into the open air. A handful of rose petals fall to the ground from his lips. He leaves them for her and makes his way back to the gunmen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you very much for reading!


	3. what hell you put me through

_but you don't know what hell you put me through_   
_to have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you_   
_to feel your weight in arms I'd never use_   
_it's the god that heroin prays to_

_to be alone - hozier_

“So you mean to tell me that these two people _died_ because they were suffering from “unrequited love”?”

“Sir, I agree it sounds outlandish, even impossible, but all of the evidence… seems to leave that as the only possible conclusion.” 

“And now Mulder’s pulling roses out of his ass.”

“Er, lungs, sir—“

“Same fucking difference. How the fuck do you expect me to sell this to the Bureau? _Unrequited love?_ This sounds like the type of shit a fifteen-year-old girl would write in her goddamn creative writing class.”

“With all due respect sir, I wish it _was_ just that, rather than me dying.” 

A shuffle of papers. A chair creaks. 

“You taking medical leave to deal with… all this?”

“No, sir.”

“And why the hell not?”

“I’ve got it under control.” 

“So who’s the lucky girl, then? Or guy?” 

Everyone is silent. 

“You know what, don’t tell me. I’ve got a pretty good fucking guess, and at the rate you’re going, you’d better be picking out a tombstone. You’re both dismissed. Be expecting a phone call so you can tell the rest of the board what a goddamn laughing stock the X files have turned into.” 

 

— 

 

“You hungry?” Mulder asks Scully casually as they clamber into the elevator. She’s clutching the files she so carefully assembled in her arms, attempting to reassemble them from the disarray Skinner angrily created in the briefing. He presses the button for the basement and the elevator doors lazily close in front of them. 

“I’ve got yogurt in the fridge, no thank you,” she mutters, not looking up at him as her thin fingers flit between crumpled papers, righting them as she works through them methodically. The elevator pings placidly between floors, a ticking time-bomb for Mulder to get her to consent. 

“Aw, come on, Scully, it’s a perfectly nice day outside. Let’s get some fresh air. You’re always complaining we never leave the office.”

She eyes him as warily as a stray cat being lured indoors with a treat. “And where will we go? Dunkin Donuts?”

“Indian place right around the block. Always empty. Good curry. My treat.”

She’s quiet and contemplative as the elevator descends. He watches her think, wondering if he focuses hard enough he’ll hear the computer-like whirring and ch-thunking in her little head, putting the pieces together, weighing the pros and cons of lunch with her partner.

“Alright, Mulder,” she says finally. “Your treat.”

He smiles, punching the button for the ground floor exit. “One last thing,” he says suddenly. She turns to face him, inquisitive.

“Don’t ask me about my condition unless I bring it up. It’s not productive and, like I told Skinman, I’m working on it. Just treat me like normal, alright?”

“I’m still your doctor,” she reminds him patiently. 

“Well, for now, I feel fine. If things get worse, we’ll talk about it then, okay?”

She doesn’t seem convinced, but neither does she press him on the subject. 

The walk down the block of the Hoover building is pleasant and warm, sunlight filtering between parted clouds, directing their path on the busy streets of downtown DC. The restaurant is hidden between a pharmacy and a coffee shop, warm and a little stuffy, the indulgent scent of turmeric directing them to take a seat by an open window. Mulder orders a mango lassi and Scully sticks with her diet soda, staring outside at the busy street side, blue eyes darting from person to person as if she’s surveilling her next target. 

“Have we ever gone to lunch like this, in the middle of the day?” Mulder’s tried to think of anything to talk to her about that wasn’t work-related and falls back on that which is so benign - small-talk. He coughs surreptitiously into his elbow as he waits for her response. More flower petals. He spits them into a napkin and crumples it into his pocket. 

“No, not unless we’re on a case,” she says. “You said so yourself, you don’t like leaving the office.” 

“Well, we better live like we’re dying, G-woman,” smiling, and she rolls her eyes at him. A waiter comes to take their order and Mulder stirs the mango juice and cream in his drink so they’re homogeneous.

“What’s the weather calling for this weekend?” He asks her.

“Supposed to be nice, I think,” she says distantly, avoiding his gaze.

“If some gruesome murder doesn’t come up, we should do something. Been wanting to go to that arboretum they opened downtown. The Gunmen will sizzle alive in the sun, so I either have to go by myself, which looks pretty pathetic, or dig someone up to come with me.”

“Mulder…” and the truth of the matter comes to light. The reason she’s avoiding looking at him, giving him short answers in response to all his smile and charm. 

_She doesn’t know,_ he thinks to himself. And how could she? Sometimes he assumes that she has a direct line to all the thoughts in his head from the way she understands everything about him without him saying a word.

“Scully.” She looks directly at him, blue eyes wide.

“If you didn’t know about,” he waves a hand to his mouth and chest, “ _this_ , what would your answer be?”

“If nothing else came up, it would probably be yes.”

“And we’re pretending you don’t know anything wrong with me. So, can I expect you to come?”

She exhales, obviously irritated by his obtuseness. “You know I can’t say yes. I can’t just pretend that I don’t know. I don’t want to… enable you to ignore your own safety by consenting to this—“ 

He chokes down rose petals and frustration and grips the edge of the wooden table with one white-knuckled fist. It all comes down to trust with them, time and time again, worn to the skin with their sandpapery reluctance. 

“You’re helping by saying yes,” he says slowly, putting emphasis on every syllable. _I fucking love you. I always have. You have to know. We hurt the ones we love the most, don’t you know? And how have I hurt you? Every which way to Sunday, Agent Scully._

Does she know? Does she have it figured out? Her pink lips make a small ‘oh’ of surprise and she looks down at her own hands, small and folded in her lap. She gnaws on her bottom lip, cheeks blossoming with flattering pink.

She’s silent for a long time, staring outside the window. Mulder contemplates just throwing a twenty dollar bill on the table as a sign of surrender and running the hell out of there. He wonders what color he’d like his headstone, what text he’d like below his name. The server comes, depositing mounds of golden rice and succulent curry and buttered naan between them. They maintain their stalemate, the food remaining untouched.

“Where’s the arboretum?” She finally asks.

 

— 

 

The day arrives gloomy and rain-kissed, a thin mist falling from the sky on the grey city. He calls her in the late morning, sipping black coffee, tentatively asking if she still wants to go, but she surprises him, telling him most of the arboretum is indoors and anyway, she doesn’t mind a little rain. 

“This one, or this one?” He asks them, holding up different button-down shirts, one white, one sky blue. He nods and thinks for a while. He throws them down and picks two others, sunshine yellow and deepest maroon. “This one or this one?”

Satisfied with his answer, he chooses another. “Hmm. Alright. How about this?” He holds up the white shirt and a handful of ties. 

“You’re so unhelpful,” he scoffs at them. The tank of mollies blink listlessly at him, darting back and forth in their aquatic enclosure. “I’d have better luck asking the Gunmen, and none of them have been on a date in the past decade. Or longer. Or _ever_.” 

Thinking of Johnny Cash, he decides to go simple, choosing the white button down and black slacks and eschewing a tie altogether. He clambers into his small, one-person shower and scrubs himself raw with his sponge and shaves, taking his time, careful not to nick himself, but digging as close to the skin as he dares. He usually doesn’t shave on the weekends, his one act of rebellion against being a G-man, but he figures Scully likes him clean-shaven and takes great care to deliver. 

He almost carves his Adam’s apple straight out of the skin with a heaving coughing fit, producing fist-fulls of rose petals streaming down the drain. His breath rattles in his lungs, raw and fluttery. When he’s cured of this damned affliction, will he spend the next week heaving up thorny vines and roots and flesh and roses? Or will they disappear as suddenly as they came? 

He towels off and dresses in his floor length mirror, taking great care to ensure his shirt stays as pressed as possible. He lets the collar lie open at his throat, exposing the tanned skin of his chest. He collects shoe polish and a rag of an old t-shirt to spot-shine his nicest dress shoes before donning them. What would she wear? Her designated Special Agent Dana Scully uniform, all shoulder pads and nylon and sensible heels, or those fripperies he saw her in when she least expected him, soft and care-free and delicate? He prayed for the latter but knew enough to expect the former. 

Always punctual, she’s waiting for him, holding a black umbrella at the ticket gate of the arboretum. He counts himself lucky; she’s wearing a knee-length sundress, floral patterned and seasonable, lace camisole peaking ticklishly from beneath the low v front. Her legs are toned and bare in strappy little sandals and he entertains the thought of his hands dancing up and down them, rubbing small circles into those bony little kneecaps. 

“You look good,” he smiles at her before coughing into his handkerchief. 

“As do you,” she smiles, ignoring his illness. He rights himself and ducks under her umbrella and takes it from her, fingers brushing, soft and cold and electric. He purchases them two tickets for the full arboretum tour and they move through the turn-still into the warm air of the greenhouse. Mulder folds up Scully’s umbrella, shakes it free off rain, tucks it under his arm as they make their way through the soft, dirt-trampled pathways of the greenhouse. There’s an endless variety of flora and fauna, from prickly towering cacti to strange exotic flora, all flowering, all blossoming, all fragrant.

To Mulder’s great surprise, Scully exposes herself as something of an amateur botanist, pointing out various plants and commenting on either the ancient medicinal benefits of them or what conditions they dwell best in. When he asks, she tells him that she took a couple of botany classes back in college and had kept up the hobby ever since, nothing serious, just a handful of plants to grace her various apartments and homes. 

“I’ve always had a green thumb though,” she says, bowing low to examine a clump of winding ivy. “My father and I, if he wasn’t on his ship, would always have a garden every spring and summer. When he was gone, it was up to Melissa and I to keep everything growing and weeded. If he found one, and I mean one, little weed near his prize-winning heirloom tomatoes, we’d never hear the end of it.” She smiles at the memory, wrinkling the corners of her eyes.

“My mother was the one who kept a garden. She’d never let me near it, lest I infect it with my ‘black thumb’,” Mulder smiles, watching her. “Although that never stopped me from eating any berries I could come harvest time.

“Nothing better than farm-fresh blackberries,” Scully grins up at him and he imagines her then, young and sun-kissed and freckled, kneeling in freshly tilled loam, blackberries stained on her cherry-red lips and clutched in grubby fingers and it hits him so sincerely, so sweetly, he walks away to cough into his scrap of cotton. She waits for him when he returns, walking with him onwards through the arboretum.

“I was always more interested in flower language, and the meaning behind flowers,” Mulder said. “In the 1800’s, the flowers you sent to your beau said volumes where you couldn’t, for fear of strict daddy beating down your boyfriend if he got too forward.” 

“How romantic.” 

“Not particularly. It’s more so an example of the pettiness of humanity. Many a blood feud was started by someone sending the wrong flowers for the wrong event. Even before then, civilizations have always attributed great significance to flowers.” He laughs suddenly as they pause in front of a clump of spiny cacti. “Surprised to see that here,” he says, pointing to a series of knobbly little succulents.

Scully squints at them. “What’s that?”

“Peyote,” he says. “A hallucinogenic plant. Native Americans would use them in order to contact the spirits beyond and execute great leaps of knowledge. Now college kids grow it for cheap LSD.” 

“Have you…?” 

“Once.” He smiles wryly at her. “Bob Ross told me the secrets of life itself out of his afro and I puked for three hours after. Still not my worst drug trip.”

Scully giggles, bubbling and sweet. “And I thought he was just nice to fall asleep to, I didn’t know he held the secrets of life itself.”

“Mm, that too. You ever watch Bob Ross while stoned, Scully?” 

“The one time I… partook,” she says quietly as if afraid Skinman would appear out of thin air and overhear her, “I was too paranoid to do anything but pace around the room and ruin everyone else’s good time. I was convinced my dad would somehow _know_ I was smoking weed with Melissa and her friends and come all the way from South Korea to bust down our door.” 

“Damn shame. Maybe if the feds aren’t piss-testing us every week we should give you some better memories.”

“Hmm, I think I’m a little old for that,” she smiles. “Even if marijuana has no ill effects, it is still illegal, after all.” 

“The best things in life always are, Miss Scully.”

“Men usually say that when they’re about to perv on some sixteen-year-old girl.”

“How old are you again?”

She giggles. “Old enough.” And delicately, gently, slowly, she winds her arm through his and lays her fingers on his forearm with a light touch.

When they finish touring the grounds, rain pattering ceaselessly on their umbrella as they discuss hallucinogenics and first dates and old memories under leafy branches, Scully casually mentions that cajun place he had taunted her with while they were in Florent, a gauntlet left for him to take up, and he tells her that it’s not all that far away and he’d be more than happy to escort her there. 

An hour later he finds himself dining on spicy cajun meats and rice, mouth burning, heart racing, while Scully giggles into her white wine, sandals worked off her little feet and kicked up on his seat beside him and he can’t help himself but fit one of them in his hand and it’s silken smooth and chilly under his fingers and she’s telling him a story of her escapades in medical school involving a cadaver’s genitals and a particularly unsavory lover boy of hers. The mid-afternoon rain is pouring outside when their check rolls around. They play a game of slap over it and he worms it out from under her fingers, shaking his head at her as he passes his debit card to the waitress. 

“I make just as much as you do, G-man,” she drawls. “You don’t need to be paying for every single thing.” 

“You’re paying me with your good company,” he grins, rubbing slow circles into the ball of her heel. She tips her head back, exposing the flushed flesh of her neck. It’s downright erotic. 

“Keep doing that,” she purrs at him. 

“I wouldn’t dream of stopping. If I gave you foot rubs all the time, would you believe in extraterrestrials?”

“I’ll believe in anything if you keep doing _that_.”

He digs his thumb into the soft flesh. “Elvis never died.”

“Yup.”

“Big Foot is real.”

“Mmmhmmm.” 

Presses both thumbs into the arch of her foot. “Aliens are real?”

“Oh hell yes,” she gasps. 

“Talk dirty to me, baby.” 

She giggles, head lolling, but she sits up a little straighter then looks outside at the afternoon downpour. “How far is your apartment from here?” She asks gently. 

“It’s that building down the street,” he says, pointing it out for her. His heart is pounding in his throat. 

When the waitress returns his card, they gather their things and she slides her feet back into her sandals and they make their way onto the rain-swept street. Her small cold hand entwined with his, they begin walking back to the arboretum, but suddenly she tugs him into an abandoned alleyway and presses him against the brick wall with surprising strength. His hand flies for the gun hidden under his pant leg but she grabs his arms and pulls him close, wine and rain and her shampoo intoxicating and cloying.

“I’ve had a great time,” she whispers. “A really, really great time.” The rain is running in fast rivulets down her cheeks, dripping off her swollen lips. 

“But?” He asks, worried, ears pricked for that other shoe to come slamming down onto the ground.

“There’s no but, Mulder.” And she kisses him, tasting of spice and wine and desire and he presses her to him, rainslicked and desperate. Her arms wind around his shoulders and hold him close, his hands coming hard on her waist and pressing her tightly to him. 

“Let's go,” she says between kisses, and they make their way, love-drunk and soaking, to his apartment building. 

She’s a slippery wet thing against the door of his apartment building, her sundress clinging to her body in all the right places, as she kisses him, lips hot and nose cold against him, his hands moving up her body and trying to see just how bunched up he can get that little dress of hers. She pushes him onto his couch, stripping off his soaking shirt and popping off buttons in her impatience. It’s fast and desperate and phenomenal, her astride him, dress up at her waist and panties carelessly pushed aside, his nails digging into the soft flesh of her hips and his name on her lips and he surges upward to bring it out of her, louder and louder with each push. 

When it’s over she’s soft and quiet pressed against him, shivering. The sun has dipped below the horizon outside, the only light in his apartment the dim aquamarine light of his fish tank. He strokes her wet hair and the gooseflesh of her skin, contemplative and peaceful.

“How do you feel?” She whispers against his neck. He shivers.

“Fine,” he says honestly. “Haven’t coughed all evening, have I?”

“Nope,” he can feel her lips curve into a smile against his skin. He rubs his hands up and down her bare arms.

“Let's take a shower,” he murmurs. “You’re shivering. Don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“Mm.” She nods in agreement, moving stiffly off of him. They move into the bathroom and strip off the last of their dripping clothes into a pile on the linoleum floor and clamber into the tiny shower together. The hot water feels phenomenal against their chilled skin and he soaps her up, her curves even more sensuous under his hot soapy fingers and they get distracted all over again, kissing messily with tongue and teeth and finding fresh places to make each other moan as he takes her against the wall of the shower. After, she crawls out first, using his only towel and promising to fetch him another one as she slips out of the steamy bathroom.

His throat feels horrifically ticklish and the overwhelming scent of roses flourishes up his nostrils. He heaves desperately into the shower, his lungs feeling like they’re pierced with a thousand glass needles. Every breath sets off a wave of fresh agony within him. His heart is hammering impossibly fast in his chest. He closes his eyes, moaning in pain, leaning against the wall heavily for support. It’s impossibly difficult to breathe and he has to work for every breath. Black spots blink and close in around him, consuming him with a tired languor. 

When he awakes, he’s lying on the floor of the shower, consciousness coming to him slowly. Scully is shouting his name, distant, as if on the other side of the apartment, but she’s pushing on his arm, pulling him upwards.

“what… happened…” each word is laborious and painful coming out of his lungs. He coughs, sputtering blood onto her clean cheek.

“Oh, Mulder,” Scully sobs.

Her hands are covered in blood and rose petals and so are his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Bob Ross voice* Haha. Pulled a sneaky on ya. You thought the angst train was over, it just started, baby! 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading & all the lovely comments!


	4. grow as we go

 

_you don't ever have to leave_  
_if to change is w_ _hat you need_  
_you can change r_ _ight next to me_  
_when you're high_   _I'll take the lows_  
_you can ebb and I can flow_  
_and we'll take it slow_ _and grow as we go_

_ grow as we go - ben platt _

He doesn’t remember much. He hears Scully on the phone with the 911 operator, voice frantic and tear-stricken, and he remembers her struggling to drag him out of the shower and then lying him on his side so he doesn’t choke on his own blood. It seems as if his blood has gotten everywhere - her cheek and face, her hands and arms, the phone thrown across the floor, the linoleum tile, and all over his naked, pale body. Pale hues stricken with deepest crimson. She holds him in her lap and whispers desperate sweet nothings to him until the paramedics arrive. He wishes he could remember what she said and he spends a lot of time in the hospital doing just that. They try to push Scully aside but she fights in the only way she knows how, with her medical techno-babble and her FBI badge, dressed in only his baggy New York Knicks t-shirt and jeans, and he drifts away into oxygen-deprived darkness wondering if she’s wearing his underwear, too.

There’s a moment he can recall in the ambulance when Scully fights shrilly with the ambulance driver to let her ride alongside him. 

“Are you the wife?” The paramedic has asked her this almost a dozen times.

“I’m his… partner!” She cries, gesturing desperately at him. “I can’t leave him! I’m his physician! I’m his…”

_My whole world,_ he croaks, but it’s only a gurgle in his throat. 

She’s eventually able to prove that she’s his emergency contact and they finally let her clamber inside. Scully is an awful patient and an even worse backseat doctor, going so far to take an IV out of a paramedic’s hand and inject it into his skin herself. He fades into the endless abyss of comforting dark once more.

Darkness and warmth. Inertia and gravity. Wheeled through endless halls, something shoved down his throat. He drifts in between harsh consciousness and comforting, drugged sleep for what seems like years. He hears scraps and pieces between the pain of breathing and the awful taste of blood in his mouth. Doctors say things like “he’s fading,” and “his heartbeat is weak” and “Get us 20ccs of this and that.”

Eventually, there are two familiar voices, one stern and low and one soft and stricken.

“Will you do it? The surgery?” 

“His condition is too weak right now, he might not survive it. His heart almost stopped an hour ago. We’ve only just now stabilized his condition. Besides, I don’t think… that’s what he wants.” 

“Did he confess? To you?”

“… Sir, how do you…?” 

“I told you I had a good guess.” 

“… There was an effort.” 

“An effort.”

“Yes, I… I don’t think Agent Mulder’s romantic feelings for anyone have anything to do with his… condition. I think this… I think we’ve greatly misunderstood the nature of the hanahaki disease—”

“Agent Scully— Dana. You’re not answering my question.” 

“With all due respect, sir, my partner is dying.” 

_With all due respect, sir, she pity-fucked me,_ he wants to bark, but the tubes and exhaustion and pain keep him from defending himself. Darkness takes his hand and leads him back down again.

He finally breaks through altogether, transitioning from drugged sleep into full consciousness slowly, each sense coming to him individually, the taste of blood and rose and morphine on his tongue, the scent of Lysol and sterile hospital in the air, the methodical beeping of an EKG monitor, an IV on his wrist and a warm hand in his own. He glances over to see Scully watching him. There are harsh lines on her face he only sees in the midst of a particularly awful case, around her mouth and high on her forehead. She’s no longer wearing his clothes, instead dressed in Dr. Scully attire, pale blue scrubs and a face mask tugged down beneath her pert chin. 

“Hey,” she says softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” he croaks. His throat feels ripped to shreds and he sounds not much better. His chest feels as if a semi-truck rammed into it and backed up over it. “How long I been out?”

“Seven, eight hours, maybe.” She runs her thumb over his knuckles gently. “Skinner’s around here, think he’s in the cafeteria right now.”

“Yeah, I heard him,” something flickers across her face, worry maybe, but she doesn’t remark on it. 

“The roses… have grown, much larger. There are thorns and hey’re puncturing your lungs and consequently blood is filling them,” Scully says quietly, deathly serious. “Your heart almost stopped twice and one of your lungs is threatening to collapse. We have to get you into surgery immediately, Mulder.”

“For what?” he groans.

“To get it out of you! Obviously, it’s not this… “unrequited” love theory—“

He turns to her, feeling fiery anger even despite the tubes and drugs and blossoming pain. “Or it is. And it’s _still_ unrequited.”

“You can’t say that, after we… did the…” she gestures helplessly. “… by any measure, you should be fine now! But you’re dying!” 

“Sex isn’t love, Scully.” 

She groans in desperation as if explaining something exceedingly simple to a five-year-old. “Then what measure is it? Consummation of a relationship is typically a pretty big indicator that there is a _love_ of some sorts. Do we need to be married? How far exactly do these requirements need to be met? A line has to be drawn somewhere, Mulder, and right now, you’re dying.”

“Fine. Let’s handle this simply. Scully, do you love me?” 

“I…” 

He laughs hoarsely. “Scully, we’re both adults, and we’re both professionals. You understood my unrequited love was for you and you did what you thought would help - you gave me a pity-fuck, and a fairly convincing one at that. I didn’t even know what was going on until I was vomiting a bouquet in the shower after the fact. You don’t love me and you have every right not to, so you fucked me hoping it’d work. It didn’t. It was a very valiant effort on your part.” He doesn’t mean to sound bitter but he does. He wants her to hurt, even a fraction of his, and he hates himself for invoking such anger against her. It’s not her fault but yet, it is. 

She drops his hand like it’s burned her and stands. She is pale and vengeful and shaking. “Don’t pretend you know how I feel, Fox Mulder,” she whispers. “Not for one _fucking_ second.” 

She leaves, slamming the door behind her, and he’s not sure if she’ll ever return. He lays there in his cold bed, shivering under his thin blanket, struggling to breathe through the pain and intense heaviness in his lungs. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep again, willing that comforting darkness to draw him back under the waves. He doesn’t have a chance before he hears the door open again. He turns to look, hoping against hope Scully’s returned, but it’s A.D. Skinner, holding a paper cup of coffee and scooting the chair to sit beside him. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Mulder doesn’t know what time it is, but it must be very late for Skinner to not be in his usual suit and tie.

“Scully leave?” Skinner asks quietly. 

Mulder nods, swallowing with difficulty. “She’s… pretty pissed, I think.” 

“Oh?” Skinner quirks an eyebrow. Mulder shrugs.

“We just… don’t… see this the same way, sir.”

“I know she’s the one you’re in the love with,” Skinner says plainly. “It’s been pretty damn obvious for a while. You two have gone through things… no one else would understand. It’s natural.” 

“Giving me love advice, Skinman?” Mulder cracks, but Skinner glowers at him. 

“For whatever reason, she’s not ready to face it. And it doesn’t help that your condition has expedited the situation.” 

“My life has been in Scully’s hands more times than I can count, but never like this,” Mulder says. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure… what will happen.”

“Well, I know she intends to go through with the surgery tomorrow morning whether you want it or not. Your life is at risk if you continue.” 

“I figured as much.” 

“It’s extremely invasive, from what she told me, and your percentages of surviving… aren’t great, ff they can even get it all out of you the first time. And you’ll be recuperating for months after."

Mulder doesn’t respond. He thinks of the X files and how he wouldn’t be able to continue his work for months after having his chest ripped apart. Be confined to the basement, Scully as his errand boy. But he wouldn’t even have her - he had no doubt she was already requesting a transfer to literally anywhere but the X files. She’s fucked her partner to try to save his life and it failed. She’s probably humiliated. She might have hated it. He’s losing everything to this disease - his life’s work and his best friend. Even the memory of her face against his and him inside her is tainted with the knowledge she hated everything about it.

Mulder turns his head to press his face into the pillow, breathing deeply. Tears prick at his eyes, painful and salty.

“You alright?” Skinner says, concerned. Mulder nods.

“She hates me,” he says finally, looking up. “She really does.” 

Skinner gives him an exasperated look. “For a profiler, you’re pretty garbage at it, Mulder.” 

“Sir?”

“She’s so in love with you she’s sick with it, and so are you. I can’t believe you _both_ aren’t coughing up flowers.”

“Sir, you don’t know… what happened.” 

“You know, you’re right Mulder, I don’t, because if I did, that would be considered fraternization and I would have to reassign you to different departments, forthwith.” 

“… You’re… quite right, sir. Although I don’t suppose it will make much of a difference right now.”

Skinner sighs, taking a sip of his black coffee. “I have to get back to the office. _You_ need to figure out how to… appeal to Scully.” He gestures vaguely. “And I have to figure out how to write this report without losing two of my best agents.” 

“I’ll be dead in a week and Scully’s going to run as far away as possible either way, sir. I’d start finding replacements if I were you.”

“I’ll kill you before that myself. So you better figure this shit out, Agent Mulder.” 

Skinner crushes his paper cup and drops it in the wastebasket and leaves, closing the door firmly behind him, leaving Mulder feeling more at a loss for what to do than before. 

Loving Scully had become second-nature to him, as close a part of him as his sister being taken from him or his fascination with aliens. It was just another thing about him. For as long as he lived, he knew he would compare any woman he met to her, and love her unconditionally, even if he ground his heart to shreds. He had accepted his fate a long time ago. Whenever he considered coming forward about it, or if a situation forced them to confront their feelings, he always imagined that once they had sex, that would solve everything. Somehow, through the magical act of exchanging fluid and sexual desire, everything would become clear to both of them. 

Never did he imagine that sex would not only further worsen the situation, but that it wouldn’t do a damn good for either of them. 

What would have happened if he hadn’t coughed up blood and passed out in the shower? Would she have stayed with him that evening, wrapped in his clothes and leaning sweetly against his shoulder? Or would she have stayed long enough to get her dress dry, then said “Well, good thing you’re feeling better, see you tomorrow at work,” and went on her way? What did he even expect? The entire day he was so focused on how _good_ it felt to be with her, how simple and perfect it was, how beautiful and lovely she was. He didn’t stop to consider what would happen, only that he wanted it, so desperately. How very typical of him. 

_We have to talk. We have to talk. We have to talk._ It winds around his mind like an ancient mantra as he drifts into dreamless sleep again. 

 

\- 

 

The rhythmic beeping of an EKG monitor. A chair being moved across slippery linoleum. The rustle of fabric. A self-conscious sniffle. 

“I meant what I said, Mulder. You don’t know how I feel. It’s so easy for you to just… believe. Love without rationale or question, just like you do in everything. You want to believe, so you do. It’s intuitive to a fault. You leap without looking, jump without thinking, in everything that you do.

I’m not like that. I have to look. I have to _know_. I have to think about everything that could happen, might happen, all the results, all the variables. It’s… exhausting. But I have to. I can’t… I can’t just let myself _do_ this. No matter how much I want to. No matter how much it may hurt.”

The gentle rasp of skin on skin. A heavy sigh. 

“Of course I want to, how could I not? The things I’ve done for you, the things you’ve done for _me_ , god, the things we’ve been through together. You’re my best friend. You’re my partner. You’re the closest person in my entire life, of course I… how could I not feel the same about you, Mulder?” 

Voice cracks. The soft whisper of tissue on skin.

“It wasn’t just sex. Nothing is ever just anything with you, Mulder. I wanted it as much as anything. But… sex is the easy part. Love is… the hard part. And they’ll _destroy_ us with it, Mulder. They’ll use it to tear us apart in ways we can’t begin to imagine. It’s safer this way, at least… it was.

I wish you loved someone else. Anyone else. I couldn’t believe it was me. I didn’t want to believe. But I think I’ve… always known. It’s so… god, this wasn’t the way this was supposed to happen… I wanted…” 

A soft sob, controlled and tight. A gentle kiss, lips on skin. The door opens, then closes. 

 

—

 

He wakes to sun spilling across his face. To his great surprise, she’s there, dozing in the chair with her blazer in her lap, a fearsome looking medical textbook in one hand, his hand clutched in the other. He watches her for a long time, morning sun razing fire through her red hair, teasing freckles from out from under her pale skin. There are half a dozen coffee cups stacked neatly on the end table beside her, along with another armful of reference books on biology.

He interrupts the peace with a rasping cough, rattling his insides with the force. Tears prick his eyes with pain and effort. Her eyes flutter open, blue and concerned and bloodshot.

“Sorry,” he whispers, leaning over to grab a tissue and wipe the blood off his lips with it. 

“Hey,” she says quietly, watching him clean himself up.

“Hey.”

She almost slips her hand from his, but keeps it there, warm and small in his. He runs his thumb across her knuckles. 

“I’m sorry,” Mulder says hoarsely. “For everything.”

She shakes her head. “It’s… not your fault. You didn’t ask for this.”

“I’m putting you through… a lot of pain. I’m incredibly grateful for… doing what you did. God, that sounds so shitty. But you didn’t have to, and you still did. To save my life.”

Her lashes flutter. “Mulder… I didn’t… do it just to save your life.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to spare my feelings.”

“No, I…” She grits her teeth. “… I wanted it, Mulder.” 

He shakes his head. “We’ve always had a… tension between us, but… you didn’t have to do what you did.” 

“There are things about this you don’t understand.” She’s exasperated with him already, her jaw tightening and eyes going hard in the pale morning light. She takes her hand from his and it hurts almost as much as the thorns piercing his lungs. 

“Like what? You keep saying I don’t understand. I agree, I don’t think I do either. I _want_ to understand, Scully.” 

“Mulder…” She stands and he thinks she’s leaving again but instead, she moves across the hospital room to close the door securely, then sits closely next to him, blue eyes locked with his as she speaks, softly. 

“I care about you. A lot. We’ve been through so much together, you _have_ to know. To… further this friendship beyond what it is will endanger us in ways we can’t begin to understand.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He hisses. “I’ve been praying you’d transfer just so you’d be _safe_ somewhere else. They gave you cancer because of me, you were _abducted_ because of me, so many things have happened just because they know how much I love you.” 

“And it’ll get worse. So much worse, if we acknowledge this. Skinner might even transfer us apart out of principle.”

“He won’t,” Mulder says grimly. “He said he’d kill me himself before he did that.” 

Their hands have found each others again like they always do in such desperate times. They’re speaking furtively and quickly to each other, heads bowed together, partners in crime to the very end, conspiring against all that seek to end them.

“This isn’t what I wanted to happen, Mulder,” Scully sighs. “I was… I was hoping I could transfer back to Quantico or something and _then_ , we could… explore what lies between us, or… maybe we’d deal with at least one or two of the conspiracies surrounding the X files and could sleep a little safer…”

“Scully,” Mulder says softly. “When has anything ever happened like we wanted?” 

Scully sighs. “You have a point,” she mutters. Mulder coughs violently and she waits for him to finish, passing him a bedpan to spit rose petals and thick oozing blood into. Blood drips from his nostrils. “Oh, Mulder,” she whispers, helping him clean up his face with a soft hand. “I hate this.”

“You’re telling me,” he wheezes. “It feels like I’m breathing glass.” 

“I did this to you,” she whispers, voice tight. “I’m killing you.”

“Specifically, how much I love you is killing me,” Mulder quips. It’s strange to address this elephant in the room so casually. After months, years even, of dancing around the obvious, it’s there, as evidenced by the roses nestling in his lungs and the blood in the bedpan, he loves her she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

“What do we do?” She says, finally. “How do we… move past this?”

Mulder is silent for a while, watching the fine features of her face. There are bags under her eyes and tearstains on her beautiful skin and she looks so lovely to him. He yearns to kiss her but holds fast.

“We take it slowly,” he says steadily. “we find a balance. We communicate. We try to be normal, at least a little.”

“Normal is scary,” she mumbles. Mulder laughs, rattling and croaky.

“Serial killers and mothmen don’t matter at all to you, but having a normal relationship is what keeps you up at night?”

“You know what I mean,” she smiles despite herself. “To love you… means risking losing you.”

“Would it hurt any more than it would now?” 

She frowns. “No,” she says finally. “No, it wouldn’t. Mulder, last week at the Gunmen, when I asked you how long you’d loved… that person, you said five or six years. Is that… really how long it’s been for you?”

“It’s hard for me to say,” Mulder says, contemplative. “It feels like I always have, sometimes. There’s no real beginning to it. It was always… just there.”

“I think I understand,” she says softly. “How you feel.”

“How do you feel?” He presses. 

“Oh, Mulder,” her voice cracks. “Of course I love you.” And she leans forward and presses her lips to his. They’re soft, warm, and salty against his. Her hands cup his face and he leans into it, breathing slowly against her.

“Your EKG,” she says against his mouth. He glances up. His heart-rate is quite high, staggered mountains across the screen. He laughs.

“Sorry,” he smiles. “Got excited.” 

“This is going to be hard,” she says, giving him a blazing look. “You know that, right?”

“Would it be anything otherwise?”

“No,” she admits. “No, not at all.” And she kisses him again, longer, slower, and the EKG monitor goes wild again and it’s easier for him to breathe with every breath against her lips.

 

—

 

After a while, Scully leaves and the doctors return to give Mulder a full work up. He coughs, only a little, during their examinations, and the doctors conclude his lungs sound significantly better and they decide to do another set of x-rays. The x-rays produce that the roses in his lungs have dissipated by about 75% since he was admitted, and so long as the growth continues to decrease in such a manner, he should be able to leave the hospital by tomorrow morning and be able to return to work within the week. 

He spends the rest of the day with Scully arguing over how they’ll put this matter into the X files, a yellow legal pad and pen in his hand, files scattered across his lap, and Scully, looking lighter and freer than he’s seen her in months, nodding and smiling and pointing out inconsistencies, sometimes touching his hand with a flit of wrist and warm fingers against his. 

In the morning they finally let him go. There are only a few scraps of rose left in his lungs and anyway, he can breathe easier than he had in a long time, and they let Scully collect his things and escort him out of the hospital with the promise that he’ll return for a series of follow-up appointments in the days to come. 

They stop by his apartment so Mulder can shower in the comfort of his own home (all the blood is cleaned up; he wonders if Scully did it herself, on hands and knees with bleach and tears) and dress into fresh clothes. He notices, flexing in the mirror, that he’s lost a little weight since the hanahaki disease took him and tells Scully as much and she smiles, looking at ease in a grey cardigan and faded blue jeans, and politely suggests they fatten him up a little at his favorite diner. 

They speak lightly of inconsequential things over a full breakfast, Mulder’s piled high with eggs and meats and potatoes, “A cholesterol nightmare,” Scully quips, enjoying her chocolate chip pancakes with a swirl of whip cream that he teasingly takes a dab of much to her chagrin. It’s a fantasy straight from his most idle of daydreams; no longer Special Agents Scully and Mulder, arguing bitterly over a case and embroiling themselves in the darkest psychological warfare against one another, but just Dana and Fox, eating breakfast, debating the semantics of spontaneous floral growth, a smear of chocolate on her cheek which he brushes away with a wolfish grin.

Mulder’s slept enough for a century but he notices the purplish bags still present beneath Scully’s bright blue eyes and he suggests she go home for the day but she refuses, citing that he’s to be under twenty-four-hour observance to ensure that the flowers have entirely diminished, so they return to his apartment. The bright morning light has given way to thunderous stormclouds and sheets of rain and he puts a rerun of The Twilight Zone he recorded on a VHS when he was in college and Scully fits herself against his shoulder and, within ten minutes, falls asleep, breathing easily against him, impossibly beautiful and scarlet hair spilling over her face charmingly. 

Almost dying for this, this pure moment in the torment of infinity, was entirely worth it, Mulder thinks to himself as her small hands curl around his arm and she leans closer into him, the only sound the crackly narration of science fiction and the tantric patter of rain on the roof above them.

 

\- 

 

Normalcy, indeed, proves quite a feat for them, full of fits and starts. When Mulder returns to work with a clean bill of health, it takes quite a bit of experimentation for them to find a new rhythm they both can agree with. If Mulder had it his way, he’d continue his interrogative onslaught of flirtation and “Ooh, and then what, Ms. Scully?” without so much as a second thought, but Scully won’t have it. Professional in the streets, and… something else in the sheets, he supposes, and eventually she becomes rather exhausted with him and impresses the seriousness of professionalism in the workplace upon him. He tries not to test her boundaries overly much but sometimes it’s too opportune to resist, and she doesn’t always swat him away, but sometimes, occasionally, gives him a rare smile.

The evenings in the workweek are “your place or mine?” With either both of them experimenting with cooking dinners at Scully’s apartment or ordering some sort of greasy take-out together in his. Sometimes they go out to dinner, but after they run into Skinner with a rather gorgeous date on his arm and, stammering, have to explain why Mulder’s leather jacket is draped over Scully’s bare shoulders and her hand in his, only to be greeted with a quirk of an eyebrow and a barking laugh, they decide to keep their dates to themselves, or at least, in seedier locations of DC. 

The easiest part of the equation of loving Dana Scully is sex, which, Mulder had always had the suspicion it would be. Mulder has always had a certain… aficionado for the arts of the bedroom in the past, but to his surprise, Scully is just as passionate as he is, proving herself a generous, expressive, and infinitely curious lover, never afraid to try something once. To a certain degree, he’d always wondered if she was as prudish about such things as she let on in the workplace, only occasionally cracking the driest of jokes, but, pinned to the bedsheets and crying out her name as she works him over, he’s proven wrong again and again. It’s even more rewarding, after a particularly sleepless night in bed together, seeing her the next morning, prim and proper in an austere pantsuit, knowing she bore the remembrances of their loveplay on her skin under all the nylon and sensible work attire. 

To his greatest surprise, even the workplace, oftentimes a battlefield of unspoken irritations and bottled up emotions, becomes easier with this new avenue of communication. Their almost telepathic sense of one another only deepens, to the point where Mulder has to stop himself from finishing her sentences out in the field together. The prospect of one of them being hurt is more terrifying than ever, but there’s also an implicit trust they’ve cultivated together. I’m their priority. They will save me. They will do the right thing. And it’s refreshing. It’s freeing. He could topple hierarchies and save the human race with her beside him. 

But events never stop conspiring against them, sometimes with a fierceness unseen in the past, pantomimes specifically designed to pit them against the one they love the most and rip each other to shreds by forces unknown. It hurts, but it always would, and at the very least, it’s easier to heal, easier to pick up the pieces and start again, and most importantly, it’s easier to trust her with everything again. 

He’s not afraid to face the unknown, not with her by his side. He thinks it’s funny that it took almost dying, roses growing to profusion within his lungs, to teach him that lesson, but every time he sees a flourish of scarlet, he’s infinitely thankful for that painful, torturous lesson in love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final a/n: my little spring break project is finished! thank you guys so much for reading & all the wonderful comments! I sincerely hope that more people write hanahaki aus in the x files fandom, I feel like there's so much room for interpretation & so many ships this could work with! if you guys write any, be sure to send me a link, I'd love to read them! 
> 
> I wanted to leave this with a pretty open-ended epilogue that doesn't totally subvert canon, so I hope I succeeded in that.
> 
> thank you guys so much & see you in the next fic I write to avoid doing homework! haha


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